Is the Right Brain vs. Left Brain Theory a Myth?

[Abtinnn]

SciShow just posted a new video: "Are People Really Left-Brained or Right-Brained?"



What do you guys think?

 

[zoobyshoe]

What do you guys think?

This is old news.

The narrator neglected to mention what was probably the most influential book in disseminating this idea, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards. What's ironic about that, is this myth: right brain = art brain = creative brain, is a misunderstanding of what she said. She didn't see the Right Brain or R-mode as creative at all. In fact, the point of drawing in "R-mode" was that this was a way to draw realistically as opposed to 'creatively'. The problem with people who can't draw realistically, in her experience, was that they couldn't see realistically. That is: they are constantly trying to reduce what they see to some formula or drawing procedure (an L-mode kind of activity) instead of simply reproducing what they are looking at. Her book is full of exercises to teach people to actually see what they're looking at, which involves a quieting of the interior monolog. If you stop talking to yourself, she asserts, you'll see things more as they literally are. And that is key for people who want to draw realistically.

Anyway, this got garbled in popular culture into pretty much the opposite of what she said. "Accessing your right brain" became erroneously synonymous with being creative. Her book doesn't teach creativity. It teaches realistic drawing.